


Broken

by elenalanda3010



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Post-Shingeki no Kyojin Chapter 84: Midnight Sun, Shingeki no Kyojin Chapter 84: Midnight Sun Spoilers, Stream of Consciousness, honestly idk, im still crying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:35:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23753194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elenalanda3010/pseuds/elenalanda3010
Summary: Stream of Consciousness.Levi and Erwin.Midnight Sun.
Relationships: Levi & Erwin Smith, Levi/Erwin Smith
Comments: 3
Kudos: 23





	Broken

Levi never loved the sun as much as he loved the sky. It was stupid, he knew it. But the sky was _something else_. It was open, infinite, free, inevitable. No one could have taken the sky away from him, _not anymore_.

The sun though, it was different. Unstable, you never knew when you would have seen it again: if the sky wanted to, it could have phagocyted the sun and the light with it. Rain, clouds, nights. No sun, not always.

Many loved it: Isabel used to be so cheerful when the sun was up, too warm to bear or too bright to see. Farlan, on the other hand, seemed uncaring; and to be honest, it was something to be expected. Levi knew that his soul did not belong to the gigantic and ineffable realities up there as much as it was tied to the pragmatic shapes of the world, _the real world_.

It didn’t matter if the sun was shining or if the night was descending, he missed them. He missed their presence, their words, their smiles, their unrequired affection.

When they died, they broke his heart.

Levi would have bet that no heart was to be found in his chest.

Muscles tend to atrophy over time: he knew it, Kenny taught him. That is the reason why you cannot afford to break a limb in the Underground. You can’t rest and stay still, waiting for mother nature to take care of it, or else you’re gonna get robbed, killed, raped. You can’t take your time and just breathe, or else you’re gonna be useless, and won’t be able to protect yourself and the others.

It is what it is: _be unbreakable_.

This is what he learned again, after their death. He was humanity’s strongest for he was nothing else but a body, an extremely efficient one. No heart, no feelings.

Many have died since that moment. He was sorry, he was not a monster: he sympathized with the grieve the others felt because it was necessary. He could have not avoided it: he was human after all.

But never he felt the same emotions he had that day. Neither when his squad died.

People were people, they were fragile and - _difficult to admit_ \- they were expandable.

Levi Ackerman was grateful for what he had all the same. Every day he woke up aware that he would have seen the sky again, he would have breathed again. Given his past, given his choices, it was a lot to be grateful for.

He had friends, too. Comrades who were not just comrades, people he would have grieved eventually. They were worthy as much as he was, they were even stronger than him (he would never admit).

They had passion, they were fire. The whole humanity had hope because of them, not because of him. He was depicted as the hero, _he was not_. The kid who was not a kid anymore, Eren, and his friends. They were what the world needed.

It was still a long way but they were every day one step closer. Closer to what, he was not allowed to know. Victory, peace? He did not care, not for real. What would have he done after all? For he was born in war, he was not made to live in peace.

But now, those thoughts became more persistent.   
_What will you do? Would you really spend your whole life watching the sky and avoiding the sun?_

The answer was _yes_ , most of the times. Because after a fight, after a titan had brutally killed one of the many familiar faces he had the chance to know, he felt nothing but sorrow. He was tired. Not tired of fighting, never, but tired of death. Tired of being the only one who got lucky.

That’s what he thought, what he believed.

Oh, _he was so sure of it._

When the sun disappeared in front of him, he thought he was ready.

He thought he had lost it all and there nothing else to feel pain for.

 _He was so wrong_.

Levi and Erwin had always been close. Close like no one else seemed to even dare to be with him. Levi never wanted to know what Erwin felt for him. For many people it was as clear as the sky he couldn’t take his eyes off from. Erwin Smith loved Levi. It was so obvious.

Which kind of love was that?

He never wanted to know, for he never wanted the responsibility to investigate his own feelings.

They have shared more than husband and wife could ever share in a life-time.

Levi’s life revolved around him: before Erwin, after Erwin.

Which meant, before the Survey Corps and after it, but it was not so linear.

It was just like as he was re-born.

And that’s why he did not need the sun. He had his personal, real, tangible, blackened _sun_.

He knew it and he accepted it as he accepted that the grass was green.

He accepted what they had. Everything.

But Levi did not know that what Erwin really had was his heart.

He had lived for so long thinking that his heart was no more, that he never saw it coming.

A choice with no regrets had been done in the past, a choice full or regrets had been done the day Erwin died.

The battle of Shiganshina was brutal and he had failed against the Beast Titan.

He had lost it all, again, again, again.

And when Erwin died, the last thing he could whisper was something that he had not thought in a long time.

‘Erwin, you’re breaking my heart’.

He was not sure if his words were heard by his comrades, he did not care at all.

They had to know: Erwin Smith was fucking irreplaceable. 

And nothing, _nothing_ , from that moment would have been the same.

He would have kept on fighting, he would have killed whoever he had to, he would have sacrificed everything.

But his heart was broken.

And Humanity’s strongest was nothing but an atrophying human.

**Author's Note:**

> No beta-reading, no re-reading, nothing at all. I'm crying.


End file.
